The Ben Shapiro Show - Stephen Harper | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 28

00:00:00.000 One of the reasons we are Democrats is that how people think and feel and react actually matters as opposed to just our blueprint view of the world.

00:00:09.000 Well, here we are on the Sunday special with former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has a brand new book out.

00:00:21.000 We'll be talking all about that.

00:00:22.000 But first, let's talk about your impending doom.

00:00:25.000 So life insurance isn't the most enjoyable thing to talk about because most people don't like thinking about plotting.

00:00:30.000 But actually having life insurance, it's a good feeling because it's nice to know that if anything were to happen to you, your family won't have to start a GoFundMe to stay afloat.

00:00:37.000 PolicyGenius is the easy way to get life insurance online.

00:00:40.000 In just two minutes, you can compare quotes from the top insurers to find the best policy for you.

00:00:44.000 And when you compare those quotes, you save money.

00:00:46.000 It is indeed that simple.

00:00:47.000 PolicyGenius has helped over 4 million people shop for insurance, and they've placed about $20 billion in coverage.

00:00:52.000 They don't just do life insurance, they also do disability insurance and auto insurance and home insurance.

00:00:56.000 If you care about it, they can cover it.

00:00:58.000 So, if you've been avoiding getting life insurance because it's tough or confusing, give PolicyGenius a try.

00:01:02.000 Just go to PolicyGenius.com Get your quotes.

00:01:05.000 Apply in minutes.

00:01:06.000 You can do the whole thing on your phone right now.

00:01:07.000 You should.

00:01:07.000 Just pause this show.

00:01:08.000 Go to PolicyGenius.

00:01:09.000 Take care of it.

00:01:10.000 PolicyGenius is indeed the easy way to compare and buy life insurance.

00:01:13.000 Again, PolicyGenius ensures that you get the life insurance that you need.

00:01:16.000 If you're too lazy to get it, you're being a bum, don't do it.

00:01:19.000 Be a responsible human. 0.90

00:01:19.000 Go get life insurance. 0.90

00:01:21.000 PolicyGenius.com, the easy way to compare and buy life insurance.

00:01:24.000 Well, Prime Minister Harper, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:01:26.000 Oh, thanks for having me.

00:01:27.000 I've been looking forward to this.

00:01:28.000 Well, the very first time that I met you, I knew who you are, you didn't know who I was, but I was up in Canada to cover the American election for Sun News back in 2012.

00:01:39.000 And we met, and at the time Barack Obama was president, so in the interest of full disclosure, I do have to admit that I did ask you to invade the United States at the time, to which you responded, isn't that treason?

00:01:49.000 And then I replied, well, it isn't if you win.

00:01:51.000 So, the good news is that was not necessary.

00:01:54.000 You didn't actually have to invade the United States, but with that said, now you're on this book tour.

00:01:58.000 You have a brand new book out right here, right now, Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption.

00:02:02.000 It really is all about populism.

00:02:04.000 I want to start by talking a little bit about your personal political journey.

00:02:07.000 So, were you always conservative?

00:02:08.000 How did you find yourself?

00:02:10.000 So, long story.

00:02:12.000 When I was, you know, kind of a bright, eager, gold-medalist high school student, I came out of Conventional public education with left-liberal, conventional left-liberal views.

00:02:24.000 I had a big sea change when I was in my early 20s.

00:02:28.000 I was working in the oil industry and the government of then Pierre Trudeau brought in something called the National Energy Program in which they tried to socialize and re-engineer the entire industry.

00:02:38.000 They drove the unemployment rate from 3% to 13% in six months.

00:02:42.000 Not to mention what they did to taxes and the deficit and ultimately a national recession.

00:02:47.000 And so that really transformed my political thinking and then I worked in politics and kind of went from there, went from being a, I kind of went to the right, became a then conventional, more centrist conservative.

00:03:00.000 Became more, as I watched the, in 1984 we elected a conservative government that I went and worked for.

00:03:06.000 Turned out not to be very conservative and kind of But kind of had the effect of making me more philosophically conservative.

00:03:15.000 Long story after that, I left the government.

00:03:16.000 I ended up getting involved in the founding of a populist Conservative Party, the Reform Party of Canada, that eventually morphed into, through various mergers, morphed into the new Conservative Party of Canada that I founded.

00:03:30.000 And so that's kind of my background.

00:03:32.000 So I've been a conservative since I was in my early 20s.

00:03:36.000 And I've been kind of had a populist conservative bent since my late 20s when I kind of got exposure to that stream of conservatism and I'm also an economist by training so that obviously helped to further my conservative viewpoint.

00:03:52.000 So who are your sort of chief ideological influences like books that you'd read or folks that you watch and you thought okay well that that person is expositing a sort of conservatism that I find attractive?

00:04:02.000 Yeah, I don't know that I can point to any one.

00:04:04.000 I always liked the classical economists, you know, from Adam Smith forward.

00:04:08.000 I tended to like, you know, Friedman people.

00:04:11.000 People kind of had a, what I would call, practical applied conservatism.

00:04:16.000 I was always a bit distrustful of the extreme kind of abstraction of modern rational expectations or these sorts of schools.

00:04:23.000 But, and of course, in terms of the political arena, I mean, I guess my hero of all time would be Winston Churchill, but I was, you know, I think of my own personal experiences.

00:04:32.000 Truth of the matter, the one individual who probably had the most influence on my own political thinking was Preston Manning, who was the founder of the Reform Party.

00:04:38.000 Even though we don't always see eye to eye, he probably had more influence of any living person on my philosophy than anybody.

00:04:45.000 Where do you draw the line between what you call populist conservatism and other forms of conservatism?

00:04:49.000 Because the book is largely about that, you know, what is populism?

00:04:53.000 I'd always maintain that populism is more of a style than it is necessarily an ideology, just because you've got populist folks in the United States, populist folks like Bernie Sanders, and you have populist folks like Donald Trump, and it seems like the only common thing between them is just saying that they stand for the people.

00:05:07.000 Yeah, look, I agree with that.

00:05:09.000 I think populism is actually a pretty thin ideology.

00:05:11.000 Now, it has a history and a particular meaning I think is interesting, but leaving that aside in its modern manifestations, it is a thin ideology and it tends to be often more about style.

00:05:23.000 But, you know, I would argue that real conservatism is actually populist conservatism.

00:05:28.000 It's non-theoretical and it is targeted towards kind of the interests of ordinary people and their concerns.

00:05:34.000 And that's what I would argue populist conservatism is.

00:05:36.000 So there are a lot of folks on the right who they hear something like non-ideological and more pragmatic, and what they hear is government.

00:05:42.000 Because typically when folks say, I'm a pragmatic conservative, it sounds like John Kasich in Ohio, what I really want is to expand Medicare.

00:05:47.000 What I really want is to ensure that everybody is taken care of by the government.

00:05:52.000 Where do you think the distinctions are?

00:05:53.000 That's a great question, because often you'll see the same thing happen in Canada.

00:05:57.000 I'm a pragmatist or I'm a centrist.

00:05:59.000 And of course, coming from a mouth of a conservative, it often means actually they're left of center, but somehow want to be in a conservative party.

00:06:08.000 I mean, I'm talking firmly about conservative values, belief in markets, belief in, you know, traditions, family, faith, the flag, etc.

00:06:16.000 But applied to real world problems.

00:06:19.000 The problem I had when I talk about, you know, theoretical abstract conservatives is the kind of conservatism that, you know, has an agenda that was written by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

00:06:29.000 and we should follow this kind of regardless of circumstances.

00:06:32.000 I'm talking about applying real conservative ideas to contemporary problems that actually need to be fixed in the interests of ordinary people.

00:06:38.000 That's different than just watering down your principles.

00:06:41.000 It's applying your principles to real world situations.

00:06:43.000 - Do you see any distinction between sort of Canadian conservatism and American conservatism, or is it basically two branches of the same tree? - No, I think they're distinct.

00:06:51.000 I think actually what makes conservatism distinct, as opposed to philosophies on the left, is because conservatism is empirical and fundamentally cultural.

00:07:01.000 Conservatism actually does differ to some degree in various entities, whereas liberalism and socialism and the realisms are kind of They're kind of belief systems regardless.

00:07:12.000 You've got to transform whatever society it is into that.

00:07:15.000 So Canadian conservatism is different.

00:07:18.000 It's, I would say, several differences that are discernible.

00:07:21.000 It is more communitarian, less individualistic.

00:07:26.000 Not to say it's not individualistic, but sort of, if you see conservatism as a balance of liberty and order, it's more on the order side than on the liberty side.

00:07:37.000 It's also, of course, conservatism in Canada, Historically and presently means support for the institution of the crown, which of course in the United States, conservatism is based on opposition to the crown.

00:07:50.000 And there's kind of values that go along with this.

00:07:53.000 These are things at the margin.

00:07:54.000 It's not like a Canadian conservative, an American conservative would not have very similar views on most issues.

00:08:00.000 But unlike a liberal or a socialist, their views would not be identical.

00:08:04.000 Mm-hmm.

00:08:04.000 And how do you think that manifests in terms of policy?

00:08:06.000 So, for example, I just spent some time up in Vancouver.

00:08:09.000 It seems like right, left, and center, there's a lot of support for the health system in Canada.

00:08:13.000 Of course, you say health system in Canada, to conservatives in the United States, we run screaming into a tree.

00:08:18.000 Where does conservatism in Canada sort of stand on the status of the nationalized healthcare system in the country?

00:08:24.000 Well, look, I never really had to tackle that in a meaningful way.

00:08:29.000 We call it a national health system, but in fact, the health systems are run by the provinces, not by the federal government.

00:08:35.000 And, you know, there's fundamental agreement around the core principle of You know, medical, necessary medical care should not be based on whether you can or cannot pay for it.

00:08:48.000 That, I think, is a principle that, frankly, people across the spectrum would agree on.

00:08:51.000 There'd be differences in agreement about how that has to be delivered.

00:08:54.000 To what degree does the delivery have to be public versus private?

00:08:57.000 Or could there be options or competition?

00:08:59.000 And the fact is, you know, we go on stereotypes here.

00:09:02.000 I mean, the fact is that much of Canadian health care is private.

00:09:06.000 There are a lot of uninsured services.

00:09:08.000 There's lots of extra services you get through and, you know, pharmaceuticals, etc., that you can obtain through private insurance in Canada.

00:09:16.000 Likewise, in the United States, every senior citizen is under socialized medicine.

00:09:21.000 So the difference is not as radical as people sometimes think.

00:09:24.000 Okay, so when it comes to populist conservatism, you talk about some areas where this would be distinguishable, specifically from sort of a libertarian perspective, on a variety of issues.

00:09:35.000 Let's start with sort of the perspective on nationalism.

00:09:37.000 So there's been a big debate in the wake of President Trump about nationalism on the right.

00:09:42.000 Like Jonah Goldberg, I think I would count myself in this camp, who are very attached to the idea of patriotism, but not nationalism.

00:09:48.000 There are a lot of folks like Rich Lowry at National Review, again, one of our colleagues there, who's very attached to nationalism as distinct from patriotism.

00:09:55.000 Do you see a distinction between nationalism and patriotism?

00:09:58.000 Not really.

00:09:59.000 So I argue in the book that a healthy nationalism is part of a healthy society.

00:10:04.000 You know, I think the kind of the Germanys of the world where nationalism, for historical reasons, become kind of inherently Suspicious is frankly just wrong and wrong for conservatives. 0.95

00:10:15.000 Now, in that sense, as I say, I'm using patriotism and nationalism as virtually interchangeable.

00:10:21.000 I would agree that if you get kind of far-right nationalism that's essentially ethnic or racial in character, it could become a different kind of beast.

00:10:29.000 But frankly, conservatives don't advocate that kind of nationalism.

00:10:33.000 Right, okay, so where do you stand on immigration?

00:10:35.000 So in the United States, obviously, this has become a massive question, considering President Trump's position on the border, and there are a variety of positions.

00:10:41.000 We've got sort of the libertarian position that says, you want to come in and work, come on in and work, but you don't necessarily get citizenship.

00:10:47.000 You've got the kind of far left and now mainstream left position, come on in no matter what, we'll try and give you citizenship, you don't have to assimilate.

00:10:54.000 You've got the hard right restrictionist position, which is, You're undercutting our labor base.

00:10:58.000 Don't come in at all.

00:10:59.000 We don't want you here.

00:11:00.000 Where do you come down on that?

00:11:01.000 What do you think conservatism wants to come down on?

00:11:02.000 Well, elements of a couple of those things.

00:11:04.000 First of all, the Conservative Party of Canada is one of the few right-of-center parties in the world that gets a large percentage and sometimes an outright majority of the immigrant vote.

00:11:13.000 So we're very distinct that way, in a way that's very positive.

00:11:16.000 I'm fundamentally pro-immigration.

00:11:18.000 I think one of the things that has made Canada, the United States, and our society successful is that we embrace newcomers who often, you know, frankly, who are often conservatives.

00:11:28.000 They're entrepreneurial, they're ambitious, they're aspirational, they believe in family, they believe in faith, they're opposed to crime, etc.

00:11:35.000 So I actually think, properly done, immigrants should be a really great base for A conservative party.

00:11:42.000 But first and foremost, immigration has to be legal.

00:11:45.000 Immigration is not a right. 1.00

00:11:46.000 Immigration is something granted by the citizens of the country through law.

00:11:50.000 I have no time for illegal immigration.

00:11:53.000 And as I've told other leaders in other countries, no illegal immigration system or phenomenon will ever be popular with a mass of people.

00:12:00.000 It just will not.

00:12:02.000 Obviously, in modern day and age, the immigration system should be scoped primarily around the country's economic needs.

00:12:08.000 There can be humanitarian and family considerations, but it's fundamentally about the economy and about building our society.

00:12:15.000 It's what I say about so much in the book.

00:12:17.000 I'm fundamentally pro-immigration, just like I'm fundamentally pro-trade, pro-markets, but that doesn't mean that Immigration is good no matter what. 0.93

00:12:26.000 That having, you know, caravans of people invading the country would be a good thing. 1.00

00:12:31.000 Or that you can live, frankly, what I would consider the libertarian delusion that people will come into the country, but somehow they will have no access to social services.

00:12:39.000 It's just never going to happen.

00:12:41.000 So, you know, it's got to be a policy rooted in what we have seen to be successful over the decades.

00:12:47.000 Well, one of the arguments that's happened sort of inside the Republican Party here has been an argument between, I would say, sort of the Tom Cotton wing of the Republican Party on immigration and maybe the Ted Cruz wing.

00:12:56.000 Ted Cruz is very much in favor of, for example, what we call H-1B visas, people coming in for high-tech jobs.

00:13:01.000 Right.

00:13:01.000 And he says, OK, well, you know, you want to bring talent in?

00:13:04.000 Well, I think that's an empirical question.

00:13:05.000 Folks can work here, it makes our economy more competitive.

00:13:07.000 Tom Cotton says those are jobs that are being taken away from people who live in the United States.

00:13:11.000 We should restrict immigration along those lines. 1.00

00:13:13.000 Where do you stand on that in terms of economics? - Well, I think that's an empirical question.

00:13:18.000 I think the truth is that, you know, certainly if you look at the Canadian labor market, I would suspect the same thing is true in the American labor market, that you have lots of jobs and occupation where the economy has needs right away and there simply aren't the kind of numbers to fulfill them.

00:13:33.000 And bringing into the country people who are educated, are going to fit in with a job right away and be productive citizens, that's a positive thing.

00:13:41.000 Obviously, and this is a big problem I have with American immigration policy today, the fact is that American immigration policy, through family connections, through illegal immigration, is often bringing in low-skilled labor.

00:13:54.000 Tons of low-skilled labor at the very time in history where we know there's in fact never been a time in history where low-skilled labor is under more pressure, downward pressure on its wages and its living standards and its opportunities because of the evolution of economy.

00:14:08.000 Why would you bring in that kind of labor as opposed to the kind of labor? 0.50

00:14:12.000 the economy needs.

00:14:13.000 So as I say, I think it's an empirical question.

00:14:15.000 I would really doubt that there's an argument to say the U.S. has no need for immigrants and that there's no immigrants who could possibly help build the American economy.

00:14:25.000 I think that's a nonsensical position.

00:14:27.000 But what's happened in the United States, and this is what happens where you have unpopular or illegal immigration, public opinion turns against all immigration.

00:14:36.000 And that's what I say a good conservative approach would seek to avoid.

00:14:41.000 Well, in a second, I want to ask you about the trade policy that you would like to see pursued under sort of a populist conservative Rubric.

00:14:48.000 But first, let's talk about your investments.

00:14:50.000 Robinhood is an investing app that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, cryptos, all commission-free.

00:14:54.000 They strive to make financial services work for everyone, not just for rich folks.

00:14:59.000 It's a non-intimidating way for stock market newcomers to invest for the first time with true confidence.

00:15:03.000 And it is simple and intuitive.

00:15:04.000 There are folks at the office who use it.

00:15:06.000 They say that it makes things really clear.

00:15:08.000 Other brokerages charge up to $10 for every trade.

00:15:11.000 Robinhood doesn't charge commission fees.

00:15:12.000 You trade stocks and you keep all your profits.

00:15:14.000 And again, they have all these easy-to-understand charts, they have all the market data, they place a trade in just four taps on your smartphone.

00:15:20.000 Robinhood's web platform also lets you view stock collections that are cultivated just for you.

00:15:24.000 Things like 100 Most Popular, or social media, or curated categories like female CEOs, if this is a thing you care about.

00:15:29.000 Analyst ratings of every buy, hold, sell for every stock.

00:15:32.000 Learn how to invest as you build that portfolio over time.

00:15:35.000 You can discover new stocks, track favorite companies with personalized news feeds, custom notifications for price movements.

00:15:40.000 So you never miss the right moment to invest.

00:15:41.000 Again, all of these tools are available when you use Robinhood, and Robinhood right now is giving my listeners a free stock, like an Apple, Ford, or Sprint, to help build your portfolio.

00:15:50.000 All you have to do is sign up at benshapiro.robinhood.com.

00:15:54.000 That's benshapiro.robinhood.com.

00:15:57.000 Again, go check it out, benshapiro.robinhood.com.

00:16:02.000 All right, so let's go to trade, because we actually may have some differences of opinion on trade.

00:16:06.000 So President Trump has been quite anti-trade in his rhetoric, in policy less so, because I think he's been moderated by a lot of members of his own administration.

00:16:15.000 A populist conservatism, the question is whether that's going to be a pro-trade conservatism.

00:16:20.000 You talk about how you're pro-free trade.

00:16:21.000 There are certain areas, however, where you're a lot more restrictionist on trade, particularly with regard to China.

00:16:25.000 So where do you fall down on sort of the trade divide?

00:16:27.000 First of all, just my background.

00:16:29.000 The government I led negotiated virtually all of Canada's contemporary trade agreements, except for NAFTA, except for then obviously the new USMCA.

00:16:38.000 So I think, in fact, I probably have a record of signing more trade deals than just about any leader in the free world alive today.

00:16:47.000 So I don't have much trouble saying that I'm pro-trade.

00:16:50.000 But look, President Trump came along.

00:16:51.000 I remember when we had this debate in the election, he came along and he started talking about good deals and bad deals.

00:16:56.000 And people went, oh, you know, some some quote economists started saying, oh, wow, he's a protectionist, bad deals.

00:17:03.000 He could be a protectionist.

00:17:05.000 But can you have a bad trade deal?

00:17:07.000 Absolutely.

00:17:08.000 You can have a bad trade deal.

00:17:09.000 I mean, when when companies let's forget about governments.

00:17:12.000 When companies do a commercial deal with another company, why do they have dozens of analysts and lawyers and accountants working over these deals?

00:17:19.000 Because any deal would be a good deal?

00:17:21.000 I mean, seriously, you have to really know what you're talking about when you negotiate something as complex as a trade deal.

00:17:28.000 The United States, when the United States allowed China to enter the WTO, we set up a situation, Canada's in the same boat, where the Chinese have wide-ranging unfettered access to almost all of our economy and we can only sell to the Chinese when, where and in what quantity and for how long they say we can. 0.98

00:17:48.000 And obviously In that kind of situation, what have we seen?

00:17:51.000 We have seen massive imbalances.

00:17:54.000 Imbalances, by the way, yeah, you know, economists will say a poor country like China is bound to have a trade surplus with the United States, but it's not bound to get bigger as China gets more wealthy, which is what is happening.

00:18:05.000 This is because you have a bad deal that provides grossly unequal access and the consequence has been the outflow of millions of jobs from the United States, from Canada to China, with no discernible benefits to our working population.

00:18:19.000 So as a populist conservative, or frankly I would say as a conservative, you don't sign deals like that.

00:18:24.000 You sign deals where you know that overall your economy is going to benefit and that lots of people in your economy are going to benefit.

00:18:30.000 The countervailing case that's been made by particularly libertarians on trade has been why would you tax your own citizens by essentially tariffing Chinese products in order to punish the Chinese?

00:18:41.000 I mean is the goal to have them lower their own tariffs or is the goal to cut them out of the market because they're quote-unquote sucking our jobs out?

00:18:48.000 The fact is that we've gotten a lot of cheap products out of China and people tend to see that as a bad thing but the fact is that consumer prices have been going down in the United States consistently on a variety of levels.

00:18:57.000 But that's a terrible argument.

00:18:58.000 You know, it's a terrible argument.

00:18:59.000 First of all, the question of whether the tariff policy is effective is a different question.

00:19:04.000 But the argument made by the apologist for the current Chinese trade relationship is, look, yeah, so we've lost all these jobs, so we've lost, you know, all these factories and everything and moved to China, but we get cheap products.

00:19:17.000 But you know what?

00:19:19.000 I get to sell stuff to you and you get to buy it?

00:19:22.000 That's not a trade relationship.

00:19:24.000 That's a purchase.

00:19:25.000 And that's not the justification for trade.

00:19:29.000 These libertarians will jump up and quote David Ricardo and classical economists.

00:19:33.000 David Ricardo didn't say it would be a good idea for Britain to open its markets if it couldn't sell its goods anywhere else.

00:19:39.000 He made the argument for reciprocal trade.

00:19:42.000 And that is the core of the argument for reciprocal trade and the idea that a trade relationship, no matter how badly structured, is somehow good for you.

00:19:50.000 Losing jobs, losing well-paying jobs by the millions to get cheap products, which by the way in most cases you could get from places other than China, is not an argument for the kind of trade imbalance we have seen and the kind of economic outflows we've seen.

00:20:05.000 That's by the way, you know, obviously there's a separate question about China being a geopolitical and strategic rival.

00:20:10.000 But even leaving that aside, that's not a good economic relationship.

00:20:14.000 And the president, my view, the president not only is right, the president deserves a lot of credit as the first president willing to take on this.

00:20:22.000 The current trade relationship with China is beneficial to a few well-connected American corporations who get to operate in China.

00:20:30.000 But it's not beneficial to the economy as a whole and something has to be done about that.

00:20:35.000 Or we are going to see a situation where the Chinese is the largest, China's economy is the largest in the world, with a grossly unequal trade access to the United States, and that's not in anybody's interest.

00:20:44.000 Well, I mean, the fact is, again, if they have a grossly unequal trade access to the United States, we still are, you know, getting cheap products much cheaper than they were 30 years ago.

00:20:52.000 With a 3 to 400, well, now a close to 400 billion dollar outflow.

00:20:56.000 Right, well, again, they're capital account surpluses.

00:20:58.000 I mean, that money has to go somewhere.

00:20:59.000 And presumably it's going into buying all of the debt that we're selling them.

00:21:03.000 So, you know, I just think it's a nonsensical argument.

00:21:05.000 It's contrary to common sense.

00:21:07.000 Contrary to common sense.

00:21:08.000 I mean, are trade deficits always bad?

00:21:10.000 No, trade deficits are not always bad.

00:21:12.000 And trade deficits under many circumstances would be expected.

00:21:15.000 We know as, you know, I know as an economist, it's likely the poor country will have a trade surplus with a richer country simply because a richer country can buy more goods.

00:21:24.000 It's also, you know, I would argue the case of Canada.

00:21:27.000 Canada in the last few years has tended to have a small trade surplus with the United States.

00:21:30.000 Why?

00:21:31.000 Because of the energy trade, a vital commodity that the United States has a special, has had a special need for.

00:21:39.000 But is a trade, is a trade deficit in and of itself nothing to worry about?

00:21:44.000 Look, anybody who thinks that trade surpluses don't matter, Both.

00:21:49.000 is far forgotten to tell the Chinese because they are building their economy into a powerhouse through a deliberate strategy of running trade surpluses with Western countries.

00:21:57.000 - So I guess this is the real question.

00:21:57.000 Do you think they're building their economy into a powerhouse or are they building themselves into a military geopolitical powerhouse with that extra cash?

00:22:03.000 - Both.

00:22:04.000 - Meaning it seems to me that their economic plans Subsidizing certain industries and cutting out other industries as a result is not a sustainable path for any country that wishes to be growing into the future and actually developing into the future.

00:22:16.000 But it is a good path for centralizing capital right now and then using that capital in order to expand your military dominance in the region.

00:22:23.000 So look, I would say there's aspects of Chinese economic policy are not sustainable over the long term.

00:22:28.000 And they're building empty cities.

00:22:29.000 Well, not entirely.

00:22:30.000 I've been to all those cities.

00:22:32.000 They're pretty full.

00:22:33.000 The fact of the matter is these, you know, they've created tens of millions of jobs, and some of those tens of millions of jobs have been created through, not through direct subsidy, and some of it's direct subsidy, some of it's intellectual property theft, but some of it's just by having access to a market and restricting access to their own market, keeping cash in China and bringing more cash into China.

00:22:54.000 So the idea that we should never worry about a surplus, no matter what the circumstances, I just think defies economic logic.

00:23:02.000 If tariffs are that good, why aren't we using them?

00:23:03.000 Meaning that if China can... Every country uses tariffs all the time.

00:23:06.000 I mean, to the extent that the Chinese are.

00:23:08.000 So meaning that China is obviously tariffing American products, you say to centralize... Yeah, but it's more than... I think the real problem in China is greater than the tariff.

00:23:15.000 The real problem in China is that the Chinese government basically sanctions entry into your market.

00:23:21.000 With or without a tariff, unless the government says you can sell in the market and you can continue to sell, you cannot sell, period.

00:23:29.000 Which, by the way, I think is where the Trump administration is likely to head over time if they can't get the Chinese market more open.

00:23:35.000 I think they're basically going to establish a managed trade relationship with China where they say, OK, if we can't enter into your market, some of your products are just not going to enter into our market.

00:23:44.000 And you're starting to see that in some of the technology space.

00:23:46.000 So do you think that the end goal should be to get the Chinese to get rid of these tariffs on our products?

00:23:51.000 No, the end goal should be for China to have its market more open.

00:23:53.000 Not just tariffs down, but have a more open marketplace.

00:23:56.000 There's no reason, for instance, that American and Canadian consumer product agencies shouldn't be able to sell freely on Alibaba, which they can't today.

00:24:04.000 Right.

00:24:04.000 No reason that should be prevented.

00:24:06.000 And by the way, and we're arguing about this being economic logic, it's not that the Chinese don't want these products.

00:24:12.000 Right.

00:24:12.000 They'll pay a premium for these products.

00:24:14.000 They want our products.

00:24:16.000 So we should have an opportunity there.

00:24:17.000 So yeah, obviously I would never support, don't get me wrong, I would never support the idea of the administration pursuing any kind of trade war with protectionism as the goal.

00:24:27.000 But the goal to be reciprocal market opening is completely reasonable.

00:24:30.000 I think the challenge, Ben, is that the whole nature of the Chinese economic structure and the nature of the government's role in the economy Raises questions as to whether they can really truly open their markets in the way we're expecting or whether they always reserve the right to just shut them at their drop of a hat. 0.87

00:24:47.000 And this does raise the question of security risks.

00:24:49.000 So it seems to me that if you're going to direct trade policy for the United States or for any other Western country with regard to China, that as you say, there should be a couple of goals.

00:24:57.000 And this has sort of been Larry Kudlow's point inside the trade relationship that he's basically running trade for Trump.

00:25:03.000 Trump keeps saying he likes protectionism and then Kudlow says, no, what he really means is what he really means that he wants to use our trade policy in order to lower tariffs and trade barriers in other places, which seems correct.

00:25:15.000 And then that seems, I think in fairness, I mean, I've been like you, I've been critical of many things about Donald Trump, especially during his run.

00:25:22.000 for the presidency.

00:25:23.000 I think if you look on balance, his record to date would indicate that he is a guy using protectionist measures to open markets rather than to pursue protectionism.

00:25:35.000 But I think the jury's still out on some aspects.

00:25:37.000 No, I think that's right.

00:25:38.000 I think that whether he intends to or not, that's what he is doing, meaning that I think that in his head, from everything that he says, he sounds like a guy who doesn't actually get basic Ricardian economics, but his trade people do.

00:25:49.000 And so they're able to- He is also a businessman.

00:25:52.000 That's true too.

00:25:53.000 So he gets the practical issues of whether it matters that you can actually sell products as opposed to the theoretical arguments about trade.

00:26:00.000 So it seems to me that, so possibility one, you use those measures in order to lower the trade barriers in places like China.

00:26:06.000 And possibility number two is that he actually- As many of his advisors do, he sees China as a geopolitical threat.

00:26:13.000 And he feels like helping them grow their economy is actually a geopolitical problem.

00:26:17.000 That the goal shouldn't be necessarily opening up the Chinese market to American goods and creating a better reciprocal trade relationship.

00:26:23.000 Maybe the goal should actually be to curb Chinese power in the region. 0.97

00:26:28.000 And so when he says national security is a rationale for trade policy, he actually means it.

00:26:31.000 He actually means it.

00:26:32.000 Well, look, here is, I discuss this issue in my book.

00:26:36.000 I think the history with the United States, it really stems from post-World War II and the Marshall Plan.

00:26:43.000 American policy essentially has become, we promote, you know, since the Marshall Plan, we promote open trade and open markets.

00:26:51.000 Because, first of all, even if we give unequal access, we're the United States, and the relationship, we're the bigger guy, it benefits us anyway.

00:26:59.000 And secondly, the effect of open trade and open markets is to produce open and democratic societies that end up being American friends or allies.

00:27:07.000 Now, I think that theory is really being tested with China, because here you have a country that could conceptually be, in fact, probably will be a bigger economy than the United States.

00:27:18.000 But furthermore, the entire practice of its economic policy is explicitly for the purpose of not opening up the governing structures of the country.

00:27:26.000 It is, in fact, to preserve the constitutional, the authoritative monopoly of the Communist Party and its method of governance.

00:27:35.000 And, I would argue, to be a strategic rival of the United States.

00:27:39.000 Certainly, if you believe Xi Jinping, that's exactly what they intend.

00:27:42.000 So, I think these things get mixed up.

00:27:44.000 Now, would I say that it's... I would still be in the Henry Kissinger school that if you can engage in a genuine relationship that opens up China, in time that is bound to make China even a much bigger China, a society more like Western democracies and more friendly and less confrontational with Western democracies.

00:28:03.000 But that's a theory, and that theory isn't panning out real well at the moment.

00:28:07.000 Exactly.

00:28:07.000 Well, let's talk a little bit.

00:28:08.000 I know we're jumping around a fair bit in terms of geography.

00:28:10.000 That's what you do, Ben.

00:28:11.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:28:12.000 Let's talk a little bit about the situation in Europe, because what we've been told, I mean, since we're talking about populism, we'd be remiss not to talk about the rise of populist movements in Europe.

00:28:22.000 Yeah, the reason I wrote the book is not just the United States.

00:28:24.000 Virtually every Western country, except Canada, has seen the rise of a populist movement. - And do you think that all those populisms are similar?

00:28:31.000 Meaning that Donald Trump's populism, do you see that as similar to the rise of populist movements in places like Germany or France or Austria or the Nordic countries, or is it of a different kind? - So none of these populisms are identical.

00:28:44.000 Some I would call, I think the Trump phenomenon, certainly the Brexit movement in the UK, these would be fundamentally kind of center-right populist movements.

00:28:55.000 Obviously in Italy, five-star movement, clearly on the left.

00:28:58.000 There are left-wing populist movements.

00:29:00.000 And there are populist movements in Europe that would be anti-market, the kind of visceral ethnic nationalism you're talking about that would be of a totally different nature, more extreme right type.

00:29:12.000 So these movements can be different.

00:29:13.000 But I would say that a lot of them have commonalities, and the commonalities they've tended to have in this era is raising questions about the functioning of market economies, questioning trade and trade agreements, questioning globalization, certainly, and European Union and Europe as a form of certainly, and European Union and Europe as a form of that, and questioning immigration.

00:29:34.000 Now, the way they question the types of solutions they advocate, I think, distinguishes them, but those are the common threads.

00:29:40.000 And so what do you make of the argument that's made by a lot of folks, There's something specifically threatening about the rise of these populist movements, that it's not just reaction toward conservatism, you know, a movement away from the left and toward conservatism in reaction to open borders Leftism or globalization based leftism, but that this has led to this dangerous rise in xenophobia.

00:30:00.000 It's led to the rise far right.

00:30:02.000 I think it's a really an overgeneralization.

00:30:06.000 First of all, I guess I argue that fundamentally most of these populist movements today, they're largely on the right.

00:30:15.000 And where I think they should attract our attention is in many cases they're garnering what would have been considered mainstream center-right or even center-left voters.

00:30:24.000 And that's what should concern us.

00:30:25.000 I tend to think, and I think this would be a surprising conclusion as a guy who ran a government that was pro-market, pro-trade, pro-globalization, pro-immigration, I said if you actually look at the complaints of these populist movements and you look at the facts, The facts actually tend to bear out that they have legitimate grievances.

00:30:41.000 I think it is in the solutions that we can sometimes get concerned.

00:30:45.000 And the reason I wrote the book is I consider these things today more wake-up calls than dangers.

00:30:51.000 You may not like Trump, you may not like Brexit, but these are people, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, these are people fundamentally trying to fix what they see ailing democratic capitalist societies.

00:31:04.000 That is very different than the Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyns that want to destroy democratic capitalist societies.

00:31:10.000 And that's where I draw the line.

00:31:12.000 So where I tend to look at these so-called populist movements or nationalist movements in Europe, Are they movements that are responding to kind of genuine concerns about how the European Union functions or how ordinary people are doing versus countries that are kind of demanding a form of ethnic right-wing socialism, which I think is an entirely different beast.

00:31:32.000 And that is, I think, the big question right now.

00:31:34.000 So I remember during the 2016 election, there were a lot of arguments about this because President Trump talked about populism.

00:31:40.000 He wasn't super clear about what he meant by that.

00:31:42.000 And so this created a serious rift between sort of the conservative side of the Republican Party and the populist side.

00:31:46.000 I want to talk about that and whether that is America specific or whether you think that that is breaking out in other places too.

00:31:53.000 First, we have to talk about that face of yours.

00:31:55.000 I mean, come on.

00:31:56.000 The saggy jawline, ladies and gentlemen.

00:31:58.000 It's that jawline, the double chin, that gives your age away.

00:32:00.000 Well, not anymore.

00:32:01.000 Introducing the brand new GenuCell jawline treatment with dual peptide and MDL technology, Chaminade's most advanced technology ever.

00:32:07.000 It not only tightens that saggy jawline, it also plumps the lipophilic layers of your skin.

00:32:12.000 Wow, you didn't think I'd say that word correctly, but I did.

00:32:14.000 To contour and define the jawline within minutes, using peptides and metal lactones together for the first time, it works amazingly quickly, and the results get better every day.

00:32:21.000 No one else has this technology or Xiaomi's proprietary chemical-free base, so say goodbye to that double chin right now.

00:32:27.000 I know Xiaomi products are good because my wife uses them, and when they arrive, my mom steals them.

00:32:31.000 Here's the best news.

00:32:32.000 It is yours free when you order GenuCell for under-eye bags and puffiness.

00:32:35.000 And for results, in 12 hours, GenuCell's immediate effect, it's also free.

00:32:38.000 Again, text that word, chin, to 77453.

00:32:39.000 because you have two of them, to 77-453-77453, or go to GenuCell.com for this amazing introductory offer.

00:32:47.000 Imagine that double chin disappearing in about a week with GenuCell's jawline treatment.

00:32:50.000 I won't mention folks in popular entertainment who could use this 100% guaranteed or your money back.

00:32:56.000 Stop imagining, call or click now, text CHIN to 77453, or go to GenuCell.com.

00:33:01.000 Again, text that word CHIN to 77453.

00:33:05.000 Well, back to a serious topic.

00:33:08.000 So, So the gap that we've seen in the Republican election base, this was a fight that I had with a lot of people who considered themselves populists, is that I looked at Europe and I said, I don't want the American Republican Party turning into a European far-right party, because it seems like there is actually a distinction.

00:33:25.000 And you obviously being from Canada, maybe you can either tell me whether this is correct or not.

00:33:29.000 That American conservatism is of a slightly different brand than conservatism in Europe or in other countries.

00:33:35.000 In that, based on the idea of God-given rights protected by a limited government, the essential assumption is that if something comes up, it is not the government's job.

00:33:43.000 And populism sort of suggests there's a problem, and now it is the government's job.

00:33:47.000 And so, if there's a problem in your town and you've lost jobs in that town, now it's the government's job to step in and fix it.

00:33:54.000 Well, if the government caused it, it is.

00:33:57.000 Particularly.

00:33:58.000 And look, so we can debate whether certain movements in Europe are far right or they're just kind of populist conservatives or are they actually far right.

00:34:05.000 I think it's the wrong question.

00:34:07.000 The question is, are they being fueled by legitimate grievances?

00:34:11.000 And I guess I would argue, and I say I argue this as someone who ran the largest per capita immigration program in the world, I would argue that when you are letting hundreds of thousands of people illegally or irregularly overrun your borders, that is a legitimate grievance.

00:34:24.000 And if you get any kind of a movement out of that, including a far-right one, don't point the finger at the people for voting for it, point the finger at the policymakers who allowed such a crazy policy to bring about that outcome and fix the policy.

00:34:37.000 You know, the one thing I would say that when people, you know, it's easy to condemn.

00:34:42.000 In fact, I had a rule in my, you know, I united the conservative movement in Canada, been divided into historically two parties and various factions.

00:34:50.000 But I always said, you know, if I got one or two percent on the right of me, that's fine.

00:34:54.000 But when you get 5% or 10% or 20% or infamously with Hillary Clinton, 45, 46% and you're calling them fringe, there's something wrong with you.

00:35:03.000 We live in a democratic society.

00:35:05.000 You can't start condemning large segments of the population as fringe.

00:35:09.000 If they're voting for that, you've got to address their concerns.

00:35:11.000 And especially, as I say, if their concerns are legitimate.

00:35:14.000 So you can complain about the policies of those, quote, far-right parties, but offer an alternative.

00:35:19.000 Don't pretend they don't have a legitimate issue.

00:35:22.000 When do you see a situation in which we may have to tell people that their concerns are not legitimate?

00:35:28.000 So it seems like the word legitimate gives us a little bit of wiggle room, meaning that it seems to me that most concerns that you're talking about are fully legitimate.

00:35:35.000 I think folks who are worried about an influx of immigration from countries that don't share our values, who are worried about an undercutting of our labor base, for example, like these are legitimate concerns. 1.00

00:35:45.000 But I feel like there are certain concerns that are fundamentally illegitimate.

00:35:49.000 So, for example, people who believe that it's the government's job to protect their job in a dying industry.

00:35:55.000 It's an industry that's being outcompeted or technologies replace the job or they're in a dying town.

00:35:58.000 And the populist movement, whether it's right or left, basically lies to these.

00:36:04.000 these folks and says, government is going to step in and it's going to save your job.

00:36:07.000 It's going to make everything all better.

00:36:09.000 When is it appropriate, do you think, to say?

00:36:11.000 So look, I go back.

00:36:13.000 I don't think in a democratic society, in fairness, regardless of what our particular philosophical leanings are, you can actually say to large numbers of people, your concerns are not legitimate.

00:36:23.000 What you can say to them is you don't think that the solutions that you're proposing are realistic.

00:36:28.000 And here are realistic solutions that could actually address your problem.

00:36:31.000 Greater education, labor mobility, etc.

00:36:35.000 But I think you're on, you know, it's just fundamental.

00:36:38.000 The concept of a democratic society is that the people's views are fundamentally legitimate.

00:36:43.000 And that is the job of rulers to address them.

00:36:45.000 See, this is why I'm so glad I'm a commentator, because I frequently tell people their concerns are completely illegitimate.

00:36:50.000 So I have an easy job.

00:36:51.000 I get to sit here and say... This is where this... Sorry, I would say you asked me about my political history.

00:36:56.000 This got beaten out of me because, you know, I became, as I said, in my early 20s, I became a conservative, got disappointed by seeing a centrist conservative government kind of pursue ineffective, watered-down policies.

00:37:08.000 And then I helped found a new party.

00:37:11.000 Well, the new party was fundamentally populist because we had no support from the corporate sector or very little.

00:37:16.000 We were fundamentally built on ordinary working middle class people.

00:37:21.000 And the only way you could raise money was by getting them to give small amounts of money and getting them to donate their time.

00:37:26.000 So you very quickly realize that as in any other form of activity, you're essentially in a marketplace, in a business.

00:37:33.000 And if you don't address the concerns of your market, it's you who is not legitimate, not them.

00:37:37.000 I mean, that may be true, you know, in terms of marketing, but in terms of morality, I mean, when I raise my kids, there are some times where my kids have a completely illegitimate grievance.

00:37:45.000 In fact, it happens on a fairly regular basis.

00:37:47.000 There are grievances that, you know, they want candy and they can't have it, or they don't want to brush their teeth as my daughter did not last night, and she needs to brush her teeth or she's going to get cavities.

00:37:55.000 You know, there's certain... When is it possible to give people...

00:37:58.000 Just like you, like you, I'm a man of faith.

00:38:01.000 So, you know, as a man of faith, you believe there are certain things... My God is constantly telling people... There are certain things that are morally right and certain things that are morally wrong.

00:38:07.000 But I guess what I'd argue as a more pragmatic politician is that most things that are morally wrong are actually pragmatically bad for you over time.

00:38:16.000 And that's why we as conservatives don't advocate them.

00:38:19.000 We advocate instead solutions that may not always be what people want to hear.

00:38:23.000 But they've got to be things that at least address their concerns.

00:38:25.000 When somebody says, let me give a practical example from the last campaign of why Donald Trump won.

00:38:30.000 When somebody says, you know, we've had de-industrialization of my entire region.

00:38:36.000 My kids have no economic opportunities, no jobs, et cetera.

00:38:39.000 And your response to them is, well, I'll cut the high marginal rate on taxes.

00:38:44.000 That doesn't really address anything they're worried about.

00:38:47.000 So you've got to come up with policies that address their concerns.

00:38:49.000 And that's where I talk about the pragmatism.

00:38:52.000 Right.

00:38:53.000 And this is where I get worried a little bit.

00:38:56.000 And can you?

00:38:56.000 No.

00:38:57.000 Would I promise, well, move your factory back?

00:38:59.000 No, because I know I can't do that.

00:39:01.000 But could I make sure you don't face competition that would cause your factory to leave when it doesn't have to?

00:39:07.000 You know, the problem with some of the traditional Center right, some of our traditional conservative friends' arguments is they'll come in and they say, well, this loss of this was obvious or inevitable because of automation.

00:39:19.000 Yeah, except that I know my factory is actually in Mexico right now.

00:39:23.000 So it actually didn't get automated.

00:39:24.000 That's a practical problem.

00:39:26.000 How many problems do you believe are brought about by individual decision-making?

00:39:29.000 So, in a free country, it seems to me that, you know, for example, there's a Brookings Institute study.

00:39:34.000 It basically says that if you do not want to be in permanent poverty in the United States, you need to do three things.

00:39:38.000 You need to finish high school, you need to get married before you have babies, and you need to get a job, any job, anywhere, basically, and hold it down.

00:39:44.000 And you won't be in permanent poverty in the United States.

00:39:47.000 And a lot of the folks who are having problems have made one of these three mistakes, at the very least.

00:39:53.000 And we are now seeing folks who seem to be using They're using the excuse that, not even consciously, they're using the excuse that this is a very rich country and so they are owed something.

00:40:03.000 And so I'm not going to move, I'm not going to go to North Dakota where there's a fracking job.

00:40:06.000 I'm going to stay in my dying town in Ohio and be angry that my factory went to Mexico, for example.

00:40:11.000 Yeah, look, Ben, there's no doubt that in, there is no doubt that, you know, in our democratic societies there's often, and this does concern me, often a rhetoric that kind of seems to absolve everybody of responsibility.

00:40:24.000 Not just anyone from a worker who's lost his job, but all the way to a kind of a mass murderer.

00:40:28.000 It somehow wasn't their fault.

00:40:31.000 And look, I have a problem with that.

00:40:32.000 But it's not as if policies don't make a difference and don't really affect people's lives.

00:40:37.000 And let me once again go back to the example of trade with China.

00:40:42.000 You know, people say, well, this was inevitable.

00:40:44.000 Well, first of all, it was not inevitable that our market would be widely open to Chinese competition.

00:40:49.000 That was a policy decision.

00:40:50.000 But even more importantly, it was certainly not inevitable that we would open it in a way that did not provide our workers with the opportunity of selling products they would make into China.

00:41:00.000 But that's what happened, and that's a legitimate complaint.

00:41:03.000 And that has resulted in the loss of millions of jobs.

00:41:06.000 That kind of decision.

00:41:07.000 Now, does that absolve the individual from You're not being educated or not trying to find opportunities in and of him or herself.

00:41:15.000 But look, we shouldn't.

00:41:17.000 You know, we shouldn't.

00:41:19.000 At the same time, when you're an elected person, you can't belittle people.

00:41:21.000 I mean, people have real challenges, real problems.

00:41:23.000 Not everybody has the ability to make their own life from scratch.

00:41:27.000 You know, we do depend on family and community and sometimes from government assistance.

00:41:31.000 That's not all terrible or all something we should not expect to some degree.

00:41:35.000 So let's talk a little bit about the problems on the left.

00:41:37.000 We've spent a lot of time talking about sort of the internecine philosophical battles on the right.

00:41:40.000 Look, I would actually argue on the left what I actually would say in my book.

00:41:44.000 And if you look around the world, the rise of this populism is actually proving to be much more problematic on the left than on the right.

00:41:51.000 Because what you had in the post-globalization world is, you know, once we kind of developed the basic underpinnings of a market economy, and we kind of accepted that in principle after the fall of the Soviet Union, You had, you know, these new wave liberals come along, the Tony Blairs and the Bill Clintons, many of whom I know and like, and they kind of propounded a more kind of elite, corporatist, market-friendly economics and program.

00:42:19.000 Well, what's happening now with the rise of populist economics, those coalitions are being pulled asunder and sometimes in ways that are just, you know, Socialist Party in France, Social Democrats in Germany, you've got people, you know, people are sticking to that kind of Kind of elite liberal market-oriented policy.

00:42:35.000 People are going back to traditional socialism and then those who are attracted by kind of right-wing conservative social values combined with protectionism.

00:42:44.000 So you've got those parties shattering in three directions.

00:42:46.000 So this is actually a much bigger problem on the left than it's actually on the right.

00:42:52.000 And it seems like it's leading to a tremendous radicalization of the left.

00:42:55.000 left?

00:42:55.000 I mean, the left is getting more left faster than the right is getting more right.

00:42:58.000 Well, what's happening, it depends on the country.

00:43:01.000 So I think you see certainly the extreme example would be the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, which is turning into a Marxist party, which is now purging anyone who's, you know, not far left, anyone who's Jewish, by the way, like literally you've kind of Stalinist type purges as it makes itself into an extreme vehicle.

00:43:17.000 In other cases, like, you know, Socialist Party in France or Social Democrats in Germany, they're being just reduced to being a kind of a rump party of kind of center left liberal elites with kind of no mass following anymore.

00:43:32.000 I think the Democratic Party looks to be more headed down the Corbyn route, but time will tell.

00:43:37.000 So it's different things are happening.

00:43:39.000 In some cases, these parties are being eclipsed by more radical parties on the left.

00:43:43.000 And in other party cases, they're being taken over.

00:43:45.000 Do you think this is going to lead to, you know, even more kind of partisan polarization?

00:43:50.000 Because this obviously has led to tremendous kind of political unrest in the United States, to the point of near violence, or in some cases violence, as the left splinters and moves to the left, and as the right reacts to that.

00:44:01.000 The fundamental point I make in my book is that these things are being driven.

00:44:06.000 The reason these things are happening, we're seeing a radicalization of the electorate in virtually every election in the last three years.

00:44:11.000 And the reason they're happening, it's not a mystery.

00:44:15.000 For a very long period of time, the material lives of large percentages of the middle and working class have been getting poorer.

00:44:22.000 And when people's lives get poorer, and in particular when their hopes begin to fade, which is what data really shows about some of these working class groups that have lost their jobs or their traditional work, what happens is that politics gets angrier, politics gets more difficult.

00:44:39.000 I say that you can't blame that.

00:44:41.000 In my point, there's no point blaming that on the policy or on the individual politicians.

00:44:45.000 As a center-right conservative who's supposed to believe in traditions and common sense, etc., you find common sense solutions that address those real problems.

00:44:53.000 If I could just maybe back up one point, Ben, on kind of absolving people of responsibility.

00:45:00.000 When I think it's unfair to just say, well, it's kind of your fault.

00:45:03.000 Let's remember something that happened in the United States and most other Western democracies in 2008-2009, not Canada.

00:45:09.000 When the elite and the wealthy got in trouble, the government came in and bailed them out.

00:45:13.000 And they all wanted to bail out.

00:45:14.000 They all expected to bail out.

00:45:16.000 So it's kind of hard to turn around and say to the ordinary auto worker or the ordinary guy working in the Midwest who's just lost his factory job, somehow it's all your responsibility to fix your life.

00:45:26.000 But by the way, if it's General Motors or if it's, you know, a major bank, somehow that's the government's responsibility.

00:45:32.000 So I think we're kind of past that point where it's kind of hard to make that argument now that the government doesn't bear some responsibility to ordinary people for their problems when the government is prepared to bail out the most wealthy and powerful members of society.

00:45:45.000 So I actually agree with that, but I think the problem is that it's possible to double down in the wrong direction, meaning that I oppose the bailouts specifically because of this.

00:45:53.000 It creates moral hazard.

00:45:54.000 People think that they can depend on the government, and it seems like, okay, so we did the wrong thing in 2007-2008.

00:45:58.000 Maybe it was the necessary thing, but it was still the morally wrong thing.

00:46:03.000 And extending that mentality to folks leads to this kind of overarching utopian belief that the government is always there to help you out.

00:46:10.000 But it's, you know, this is where I'm not a libertarian.

00:46:14.000 It's not because I don't believe in the efficacy of free markets or I don't believe in the idea of individual rights.

00:46:20.000 It's because libertarianism runs counter to data.

00:46:23.000 And the fact of the matter is these things happened.

00:46:26.000 And you can't just wish them not to have happened and pretend that they have no influence on how people see the world or their expectations about the world.

00:46:34.000 And, you know, the bailouts.

00:46:36.000 Look, I was right there when this all happened.

00:46:38.000 I was running a G7 country when we did all this.

00:46:41.000 I bailed out the auto sector.

00:46:43.000 Now, why did I bail out the auto sector on my 50th birthday?

00:46:46.000 You know, I wrote a multi-billion dollar check to the biggest, what had been some of the richest companies in Canada.

00:46:55.000 Some of my caucus and cabinet resisted it to the end.

00:46:57.000 Why did I do it?

00:46:59.000 I did it because I had to do it.

00:47:00.000 I had to do it because the United States had decided that this integrated industry would be bailed out. 0.99

00:47:06.000 And if Canada did not participate in that bailout, a half a million jobs would have been moved across the border in less than a year to the United States.

00:47:13.000 I could not risk that.

00:47:14.000 That was not a realistic choice for me.

00:47:16.000 So the choice was, if the United States, which owned 83% of the industry, was going to bail out the industry, Governor Canada would have to bail out its portion.

00:47:24.000 That's just the reality.

00:47:25.000 Doesn't that incentive structure exist in virtually every industry, though?

00:47:27.000 I mean, everybody is subsidizing someone.

00:47:29.000 So where do you decide to draw the line as far as, okay, these jobs deserve to be saved.

00:47:32.000 These jobs don't deserve to be saved.

00:47:34.000 This industry deserves to be bailed out.

00:47:35.000 This one does not.

00:47:36.000 So generally speaking, I didn't do a lot of bailouts and I don't like bailouts.

00:47:43.000 Generally speaking, you want the market to kind of work out who's going to grow and who's going to fail.

00:47:49.000 The problem in that case was, as I said, I faced the reality that due to actions of another government beyond my control, I was going to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs in Canada if I did not act that way.

00:48:02.000 And you can say, well, then the real problem was in the U.S.

00:48:04.000 The U.S.

00:48:05.000 should not have bailed out the industry.

00:48:06.000 The U.S.

00:48:06.000 should have let Chapter 11 bankruptcy take over, except that that was a theoretical possibility when the entire financial system was not functioning.

00:48:13.000 So you can say if the financial system were functioning properly, I think you could have made an argument in the United States.

00:48:20.000 Yes, you could have made an argument, let the marketplace sort this out and probably would have.

00:48:25.000 But in late 2008, early 2009, there was no possibility of that happening.

00:48:29.000 So as I say, as a conservative, you deal with the world as it is.

00:48:33.000 Does some of this offend my idea of what is ideal economic policy?

00:48:37.000 Absolutely.

00:48:38.000 But you have to play the cards you're given and you just can't wish them away.

00:48:42.000 Well, it seems like, obviously, in exigent circumstances, you're gonna have to do what you're gonna have to do, but in non-exigent circumstances, so right now, we're not experiencing exigent circumstances, right?

00:48:50.000 Now we have a very solidly growing economy, particularly in the United States.

00:48:55.000 We have wage growth for the first time in a long time.

00:48:58.000 It seems like now would be a good time to sort of fundamentally restructure people's understanding of what it is the government is supposed to do for them, and fundamentally restructure in a legal way what bailouts are available to companies.

00:49:08.000 As I say, it's just tough when people knew that things were really bad and you bail out the wealthy to tell them now the rest of the time.

00:49:14.000 I know, the problem is that at some point the ration only works in one direction, right?

00:49:17.000 So look, as I say, you know, you expect, we obviously can't have a society where nobody's responsible for any aspect of their lives.

00:49:24.000 That society will fail.

00:49:25.000 It will inevitably fail no matter how wealthy we are.

00:49:28.000 And that worries me.

00:49:29.000 On the other hand, I don't think it's realistic.

00:49:32.000 Given the nature of a modern economy, how complex it is, what that does to the underlying social and family dynamics to expect that government will not be involved in anything, won't help you with your education, it won't help you with mobility, it won't help you with anything else, it won't provide you tax incentives, anything to help you in your life.

00:49:50.000 I just think that's not a realistic option either.

00:49:52.000 So it sort of feels like it's difficult to draw lines.

00:49:56.000 That's about what being a conservative is.

00:49:57.000 The reality as a conservative is that you recognize that reality is really complicated.

00:49:59.000 I know when I see it.

00:50:00.000 Yeah.

00:50:00.000 So how much is too much government interventionism and how much is not?

00:50:04.000 That's about what being a conservative is.

00:50:06.000 The reality as a conservative is that you recognize that reality is really complicated.

00:50:11.000 I mean, one of the reasons we like a market, we like markets because markets can deal with a lot of complicated, complex micro decisions in ways that government can't.

00:50:20.000 But the reality is that reality is extremely complicated.

00:50:24.000 And we have broad, as conservatives, I think we share some broad social and economic values.

00:50:29.000 But the fact of the matter is we'll find different cases where different policies are appropriate.

00:50:34.000 And that's not just based, the important thing is that's not based on political expediency.

00:50:38.000 That's based on dealing with the reality of the economic and political situation and social situation in front of you.

00:50:44.000 I mean, to a certain extent, aren't those the same thing, though?

00:50:46.000 I mean, political expediency being, you know, dealing with the situation in front of you in the best possible way, meaning that... Well, they can be, but they don't have to be.

00:50:54.000 You know, look, theoretically, I guess, in 2009, 2008, 2009, I could have said, I'm not bailing out the auto industry.

00:51:05.000 It only operates in one part of the country.

00:51:06.000 The rest of the country will cheer.

00:51:08.000 The problem is that I knew, forget about the loss of political votes from some people and the gain from others, the problem is I knew that the outcome of that decision would be very bad for the economy as a whole and I think probably everybody would eventually have hated me making that decision.

00:51:24.000 So you can call that political expediency, but that's actually reality.

00:51:27.000 I mean, this is one of the reasons Right.

00:51:30.000 we are Democrats, right?

00:51:31.000 One of the reasons we are Democrats is that how people think and feel and react actually matters as opposed to just our blueprint view of the world.

00:51:40.000 Right.

00:51:40.000 And this is one of the reasons why I'm very much on board with the founding father's vision of democracy is, you know, got to check it so that it didn't just mob rule.

00:51:49.000 Because obviously there is a line to be drawn between the passions of the public and what is legitimate policy and invasion of rights.

00:51:55.000 Let's talk for a second about foreign policy, because some of the most controversial decisions you made when you were prime minister had to do with foreign policy.

00:52:00.000 And we are seeing, when we talk about splits in foreign policy in terms of left and right, nowhere are we seeing this more broadly than on foreign policy grounds right now.

00:52:09.000 Why do you think it is that the left has moved so far in one direction on foreign policy?

00:52:13.000 I don't just mean with regard to sort of open borders immigration, but with regard to the Iran deal, with regard to, with regard to Middle Eastern policy.

00:52:22.000 It seems like you're, you're in the, obviously as a, as a Jew, I was very familiar with your record on Israel as Prime Minister of Canada, very grateful for it as well.

00:52:30.000 But why do you think it is that the left has moved so far in the anti-Israel direction?

00:52:35.000 So that's a good question.

00:52:37.000 And there were many things that caused me to gravitate from being a kind of a liberal guy when I was really young to a conservative as an adult.

00:52:47.000 And it wasn't all the experiences of a national energy program.

00:52:52.000 You know, my father would have been considered a liberal in his era.

00:52:56.000 You know, he was a He was a vocal opponent of anti-Semitism when anti-Semitism was extremely common in Canada.

00:53:04.000 He was a vocal supporter of what we would now call civil rights, the movements of blacks and others to have voting and other rights.

00:53:13.000 He would be very vocal as a young man.

00:53:15.000 But I think by the time I became kind of him, by the 1980s, I started to detect that the modern liberalism or modern left side of the spectrum, even in the center, was going in a different direction.

00:53:27.000 It was no longer about, you know, actually empowering people who had been downtrodden.

00:53:35.000 It started to become more fundamentally kind of a hatred of our own society.

00:53:39.000 What I call alienism, the opposite of nationalism.

00:53:42.000 Our culture's wrong.

00:53:43.000 Our values are wrong.

00:53:44.000 The other guy's always right.

00:53:47.000 And so I support Israel.

00:53:50.000 Take the Israel situation.

00:53:51.000 I support Israel.

00:53:53.000 I tell people my views are not religious in nature and it's not a biblical interpretation.

00:53:57.000 I support Israel because I see Israel as part of the Western Democratic Society of Nations, a vital ally in the most dangerous part of the world. 1.00

00:54:05.000 And I see a retreat Us retreating or abandoning Israel in that position of the world is detrimental long-term to our own basic national self-interest.

00:54:14.000 I think it is critical that Western countries support Israel.

00:54:17.000 I think it is incredibly myopic and dangerous politicians who for various other political expediency reasons want to abandon Israel.

00:54:26.000 But I think the reason you see so much antipathy to Israel on the left is for precisely the same reason they see in Israel a society like ours And they want to blame it for all the problems of the region, which is nonsense.

00:54:40.000 And, you know, there's this deep dislike of our society, of the United States, of the West, and they see Israel as a manifestation of that.

00:54:46.000 So that's the part, and I just, and I know I'm not going to say every liberal thinks like this, but I see this, you know, and we can point to extreme examples of this.

00:54:57.000 Extreme examples, but examples that are common.

00:54:59.000 You know, a perfect example is, I saw it recently on one of your TV shows, a liberal talk radio host talking about, you know, supporting the right of Muslim women to cover their face because no man should tell a woman how to dress.

00:55:13.000 Well, what do you think that is?

00:55:14.000 That is a man telling a woman how to dress. 0.98

00:55:17.000 But you know, you choose in your liberal mindset to see that as the valid manifestation of some other culture, just because it's another culture.

00:55:26.000 And somehow it then becomes a good thing that you see as Western feminism instead of as Islamic, as kind of extreme form of the anti-women aspect of Islamism. 0.78

00:55:39.000 But you see this all the time.

00:55:40.000 And so this is the part of the modern left, and you see it all through foreign policy.

00:55:44.000 We are always to blame.

00:55:46.000 We are always at fault.

00:55:47.000 And we have nothing but to kind of beg forgiveness and learn from other societies.

00:55:52.000 And I have a very different view, and I'm not going to say Western society or Canadian society has been or is faultless, but these are the most successful, freest, prosperous societies in the world.

00:56:06.000 And they've also been the most dynamic, resilient and adaptable societies, also the ones most likely to admit and correct error.

00:56:13.000 And the idea that we should somehow be ashamed of our societies, or that we should kind of go out into the world with perpetual self-doubt and flagellation, I just think is an aspect of modern liberalism I can't accept.

00:56:28.000 I think it's very fundamental to all of the foreign policy.

00:56:30.000 I mean, I obviously agree.

00:56:31.000 And what's kind of fascinating, though, is you actually do see this strain in some elements of American libertarianism, and even in populism, this sort of isolationist, withdrawal-from-the-world mentality.

00:56:41.000 What do you make of that?

00:56:42.000 And why do you think that there's this sort of horseshoe effect, that you go far enough in one direction, you end up back at this isolationist center?

00:56:47.000 Yeah, I see less isolationism in kind of what's happened with Trump and kind of American populism than some.

00:56:55.000 I think it's more accurately described as unilateralism.

00:56:58.000 than isolationism.

00:56:59.000 It's very different.

00:56:59.000 And I don't think it's not without concerns.

00:57:04.000 I don't, on the other hand, I don't think it's always the case that multilateral institutions have been working really well for the United States or even for the West as a whole.

00:57:12.000 So I do think a new balance needs to be struck.

00:57:14.000 But, you know, look, it's still important.

00:57:16.000 The United States, let me tell people, I'm very pro-American, as you know, The United States is the most powerful and important country in the world, and certainly to Canada, it is the most important and powerful country in the world.

00:57:29.000 But that doesn't mean the United States can go into the world with no allies and no friends and expect to prosper in the long term.

00:57:35.000 I do think unilateralism in the extreme is as bad as multilateralism in the extreme.

00:57:40.000 Well, Prime Minister Harper, I do have one more question for you.

00:57:42.000 I want you to grade President Trump.

00:57:45.000 But if you want to hear Prime Minister Harper's answer, you have to go over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:57:50.000 You get the rest of our wonderful subscriber benefits.

00:57:52.000 If you get the annual subscription, you get one of these leftist tears, hot or cold tumblers.

00:57:55.000 You get all those things when you go to dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:57:58.000 Subscribe now to hear Prime Minister Harper's answer.

00:58:00.000 Well, it was such a pleasure to have Prime Minister Harper here.

00:58:03.000 His new book is right here, right now, Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption.

00:58:08.000 Prime Minister, thank you so much for stopping by.

00:58:09.000 Thanks for having me.

00:58:09.000 Appreciate it.

00:58:10.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is produced by Jonathan Hay.

00:58:19.000 Executive producer Jeremy Boring.

00:58:21.000 Associate producer Mathis Glover.

00:58:22.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:58:24.000 Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.

00:58:25.000 Hair and makeup is by Jeswa Alvera.

00:58:27.000 And title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

00:58:29.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - November 18, 2018

Stephen Harper | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 28

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript